


Flustered When I'm With You

by InitialA



Series: The One Where These Two Dorks Love Each Other [2]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Awkward Carlos, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Romance, Awkwardness, Bad Flirting, Carlos is a Dork, Carlos is the biggest dork ever actually, Cecil is Human, Cecil is Oblivious, Cecil is a Dork, Comedy, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Humor, M/M, Oblivious, Oblivious Cecil, Propositions, Romance, Sushi, everyone is awkward and dorky and precious, this fic has been properly tagged in warning for second-hand embarrassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 18:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InitialA/pseuds/InitialA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Date night at the White Sand Ice Cream Shop is going... less spectacularly than planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flustered When I'm With You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyZolstice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyZolstice/gifts).



> I am fully pinning the blame for this on ladyzolstice, who adds delightful tags to everything she reblogs and make me think of EVIL THINGS. Just saying.  
> There’s also some mild continuity from ‘The Devil Made Me Do It’. Like, three sentences of continuity.

Cecil’s face lit up as he left the station. Carlos was waiting for him at his car. They were going out for dinner—the Sushi Night at the White Sand Ice Cream Shop had been an enormous success, and after several weeks of trying to get reservations for the town’s new Friday night hotspot, they were finally going to try it for themselves. Apparently spicy crab in a seaweed and rocky road roll was to _die_ for, especially with a little sashimi drizzle and sprinkles. Cecil hoped it wasn’t a literal to-die-for thing; he wasn’t quite ready to accept death as his master, though he hadn’t noticed any particularly alarming death rate rising around the town.

“Hey,” Carlos said as Cecil skipped over to him, throwing his arms around him and kissing him thoroughly. “I liked the show. Nice er… science corner.”

“Oh, did you like that?” Cecil asked, beaming. “I wondered. I hope you don’t mind that I looked at your notes about the volcanic rock in the area. It’s so refreshing to find that obsidian isn’t as depleted as we once thought. It’s such a nice, cheap alternative to black onyx in spellcasting.”

“Er, right. No, I don’t mind that you looked at my notes. In fact,” he said as they got into his car, “you’re welcome to look at them anytime.”

Cecil beamed, if at all possible, even wider. Carlos smiled, starting the car and pulling out into the road. “Actually, I got a report this morning that you might find particularly interesting.”

“Oh?” Cecil asked.

“It’s about you.”

“Me?” He asked. His head tilted to one side in confusion.

“Yup. The results are in. Scientists everywhere agree, you’re very cute. They’re all blushing,” Carlos said, glancing over at him.

Cecil stared, head still cocked to one side. “Carlos, that seems… like a very irresponsible thing to spend your grant money on. You were just telling me the other night that you’re worried they won’t renew. I don’t need scientific confirmation about how attractive others find me. I’m fine with me. I… I _think_ you’re fine with me. I _hope_ so, anyway. You are, right?”

Carlos looked so flustered that Cecil was worried he might crash the car. “I-I am, it’s just… I… I was trying to… oh, never mind…”

Cecil patted his arm. “It’s okay. It’s very sweet of you, really, and I am flattered.”

Carlos sighed, for some reason. Cecil shrugged, and chattered on happily about his day; Station Management had been on the prowl again at lunchtime, causing the microwaves and vending machines to malfunction. One of the new interns had actually made it through the barricade they’d erected to run out to the Ralph’s and get them all Lunchables. She was currently being lauded as a hero. Carlos smiled in all the right places during the story, though Cecil had been hoping for laughs. Maybe he’d had a tough day. Cecil resolved to get him to lighten up over dinner: leave work at work, after all!

Once they’d gotten to the ice cream shop and been seated, they argued over which rolls to get. Carlos hated any kind of California roll—it was for wimps with no palate for finer tastes. Cecil wasn’t big on heavy spices. Carlos argued that the ice cream would dilute the spices anyway, so eventually they compromised on a mild roll for Cecil, a hot roll for Carlos, and a medium roll to share. “How can you live in the Southwest and not like spicy food?” Carlos sighed as the waitress hurried away with their order.

Cecil shrugged. “Mom never made any, and we didn’t go out to eat a lot when I was a kid.”

Carlos rubbed his neck. “I should warn my mother of that… she practically puts the whole bushel of peppers in for some dishes. If you’re not begging for yogurt, she’s insulted.”

Cecil gaped. “Your mother?”

Carlos grimaced. “Well, someday, when I take you home to meet her…”

“Oh…” Cecil said. It wasn’t an ‘oh’, like when he hadn’t been invited inside that first time. It was an ‘oh’ that said ‘You’re really into this relationship and you want me to meet your parents and I’m dumb for not realizing that, and it’s really, really scary but also makes me really, really happy’. ‘Oh’s contain multitudes.

“Yeah.”

They sat, not speaking, as the ice cream shop swarmed with life around them. People shouting about their sushi, either in delight or horror, people laughing, people talking, people discussing the mayoral race—which was becoming dirtier and dirtier with each passing week—in hushed tones, lest they be singled out by the Secret Police for discussing politics without a signed permit. Carlos’ face was turning redder and redder, and Cecil was about to ask if anything was wrong when he blurted out, “Gosh, I’m really hungry.”

“Oh. Uh, yeah. I mean, it’s busy in here, I guess it’ll take some time… though you’d think raw fish and ice cream wouldn’t be too difficult to have prepared beforehand…” Cecil mused.

“No, I mean… Yes, I am hungry for sushi, f-but you know… I’m hungry f-for other things too,” Carlos stammered.

“Dessert? I think this counts as dinner and dessert, Carlos. Though I have been craving some kettle corn from the Green Market… Maybe we could stop there after!”

“No! I mean… well, yes, we can get kettle corn, but I mean! No! Not like that. I mean… _other_ things!”

Cecil blinked. “What other things are there?”

Carlos looked around fleetingly before leaning forward; his cheeks burned red as he whispered conspiratorially, “You know. _Sex things_.”

Cecil’s eyes widened. “Carlos… are you all right?”

Carlos sat back, looking pained and rejected and buried his face in his hands, moaning, “Oh God, I’m so bad at this… Stupid, _stupid_ … There are actual, _elegant_ ways to bring up this topic, and I go for _that_ …”

Cecil opened his mouth to say something when the waitress came back with their sushi. Carlos picked at his crab-and-rocky-road dejectedly, and didn’t even perk up when Cecil willingly tried the salmon-and-black-cherry, and didn’t even need to drink most of his water after. They ate entirely in silence and Cecil’s grand gesticulations, and ended up asking for boxes to take the rest home. Cecil pretended not to notice the stares from everyone as they left; stares that came from people wondering if the town’s ‘celebrity couple’ was doing okay, stares that felt like knives even as he pretended they didn’t exist at all.

Carlos slumped behind the wheel of the car, and started it. The radio was almost deafeningly loud, in the middle of the two hour block dedicated to the sounds of people washing clothes on river rocks, and Cecil turned it down. “I’ll take you back to the station, we left your car there,” Carlos intoned monotonously.

“Carlos…”

The scientist flexed his hands against the steering wheel. “Look, I was… really badly trying to flirt with you. You’re so good at like… words. And making them sound good together. And then there’s me, and I sound like, like a teenager all over again, all foot-in-mouth and no idea how to talk to someone I genuinely care about. So, I’m sorry I’m really dumb, and let’s just both go home and forget I ever said anything.”

Cecil was starting to connect the pieces, and couldn’t stop the gleeful smile from breaking out on his face. “Wait, Carlos, just… wait. You were trying to flirt with me?”

Carlos rested his head against the steering wheel. “Badly, yes.”

“So when you said you had a new study in…”

“I was trying to be funny and compliment you.”

“And in the restaurant…”

“There are literally millions of better ways of approaching the topic of furthering a relationship, and I happened to pick the thing just above knocking your head in with a club and dragging you into my apartment by your hair. God. My brother _told_ me I wasn’t funny, for _years_ …”

Cecil bounced in his seat, making the car shake suggestively. “You-you want to… Oh, _Carlos_ , really?”

He looked up, a line etched into his forehead from the stitching on the steering wheel; he looked hesitant, hopeful. “I mean… we’ve been dating for a while… And it seemed like the most logical step…”

Cecil managed not to actually squeal like a teenager, but instead threw himself over the arm rest and kissed Carlos thoroughly. “ _Yes_ , Carlos,” he breathed. “I’m sorry; I should have paid better attention.”

Carlos rested their foreheads together. “No, it’s… well, it’s embarrassing, but it’s fine. I kind of get… really dumb around you. Sometimes.”

“Never,” Cecil insisted.

“I do have one condition, though,” Carlos said.

Cecil pulled back. “That is?”

“Night Vale will never, _ever_ hear _any_ details _at all_ about what has happened today. What happened between when I picked you up and… whenever we pass out tonight,” Cecil shivered at the phrasing, “will only stay between you, me, and whatever poor sod over at the police station gets stuck listening in. Deal?” Carlos asked.

Cecil nodded. “Deal.”

“Good. Now, your place, or mine?”

“Someone owes me an invite inside.”

Carlos chuckled. “Fine, my place.”

And, true to his word, Cecil never told anyone about that horribly awkward, yet simultaneously magical night. Now, the Secret Police officer, he only had to put a two-year classified stamp on _that_ particular file…

**Author's Note:**

> Oh God, I don’t know who’s more of a dork: oblivious Cecil, or Carlos-the-actual-dork. Thank you for reading! Come hang out with me over on [Tumblr](http://initiala.tumblr.com)!


End file.
